Until the Sea Shall Free Them : Life, Death and Survival in the Merchant Marine [Import] [Unbound]

Robert Frump (Author)

Product Details

• Unbound
• Publisher: Doubleday Publishing (2002)
• ISBN-10: 0385504926
• ISBN-13: 978-0385504928
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)

More About the Author

Robert R.Frump is a nationally recognized journalist who won several major awards while a journalist and investigative reporter at The Philadephia Inquirer. He grew up in the small farm town of Paxton, Ill, graduated from the University of Illinois and received a master's degree from Northwestern University -- all in journalism. He received, with Tim Dwyer, the George Polk Award, for his reporting on unsafe U.S. ships, and the Gerald Loeb Award for National Business Reporting. He was also a member of an Inquirer task force that won the Pulitzer Prize. He is married to Suzanne Saxton-Frump. They have two daughters, Sarah, a student at Brown University, and Caitlin Dean, a software engineer. He is the former managing editor of The Journal of Commerce.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Publishers Weekly is Wrong, May 20, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Until the Sea Shall Free Them: Life, Death, And Survival In The Merchant Marine (Hardcover)

What was the reviewer from Publishers Weekly smoking? I read the excerpt from Men's Journal, read the favorable Washington Post review Sunday and just finished the book. It is wonderfully written and a riveting story. Anyone interested in what really goes on in the Merchant Marine should read this story.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A non-fiction page turner you won't put down., May 18, 2002

By 

Brian P. Sullivan (Dana Point, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Until the Sea Shall Free Them: Life, Death, And Survival In The Merchant Marine (Hardcover)

I received the book on Friday in the 4pm mail. Finished it on Saturday, 4 pm. In between I kept stealing time to relish the quick pace of "Until the Sea Shall Free Them." Frump knows his stuff, but doesn't bog the book down with insider jargon. This is journalism, not academia, and it reads like a novel. Too bad the owners of the Marine Electric and the Coast Guard bigwigs wouldn't talk - the lawsuits are all settled and the book would have benefited from their insights. But after reading the book, you won't doubt that this is a ship, like so many other rust buckets, that simply should not go to sea. Thanks in large part to this kind of excellent journalism, they won't, and lives will be saved as a result.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A true page-turner, August 25, 2002

By 

Gregory D. Storey (New Jersey) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Until the Sea Shall Free Them: Life, Death, And Survival In The Merchant Marine (Hardcover)

Robert Frump's book is a fascinating, true story that reads like a gripping piece of fiction. It's half sea story, half courtroom-type drama and all page-turner.

It's the tale of a part of American life most people know nothing about, including too many journalists and book reviewers: a saga of 1980s merchant seamen hungry for jobs, of a substandard ship that capsized in the winter sea and killed most of its crew, and of an investigation that would have quietly sunk, too, except for the courage of one of the survivors and a determined Coast Guard officer.

Frump was the lead reporter on a Philadelphia Inquirer team that probed the sinking and the broader system in which it took place. His passion for the subject, even 20 years later, is evident. So, too, is the depth of his research, from details of the sinking to simple things like the feel of a ship's bridge at night.

"Until the Sea Shall Free Them" is well worth a read, whether or not you're a sea-saga aficionado. I covered the maritime industry for a business newspaper and worked in a port trade association for a number of years, and I thoroughly enjoyed the book. My wife, whose tastes run to classics and mysteries, was equally enthralled. Read it.